VIRGINIA BEACH REPORT

This past Friday we departed Virginia Beach a little after midnight to journey 70 miles SE to investigate a set of numbers in 150 fsw that Capt JT (and the rest of us) hoped would be an exciting discovery of a new wreck. These trips can be risky as you never know what you will find, but at the same time not many people can say they were the first to dive a shipwreck! Daylight broke and we found ourselves looking at a large profile on the bottom machine. The shot was dropped and soon after Bobby and Michael to tie in. They returned before I had my rebreather and camera set up and were not quite sure what we had found but it was covered in discarded fishing nets held high off the bottom by floats.

The water was emerald green and with very good visibility of 30-40 feet I dropped off the line well before the bottom to avoid crashing like a fly into the spider web of nets below and alighted on the white sandy bottom just off the wreckage. I started poking around looking for clues to what this was when in the debris I spotted some MASSIVE claws and soon found myself in a wrestling match with a 14 lb beast that after considerable effort I somehow managed to stuff into my proverbial 5 lb bag. With that out of the way I started checking out the “wreck” while Andrew and Mark buzzed around on their scooters. Not much to note and we came to the conclusion it was either a spaceship or something that fell off a dredge? Who knows, it wasn’t a wreck but it was a hell of a fun dive and loaded with BIG lobsters.

From there we headed to the MEXICANO, a large relatively intact freighter in 140 fsw. We did an afternoon dive and after some dinner and a movie (Avatar), a really cool night dive. At night the interior of the wreck was alive with huge conger eels that were on the prowl looking for dinner. Just their faces were visible if you were poking around during the day but at night they were free swimming and it was kind of creepy seeing these 5-6 foot long fish swimming about. All the sea bass were sleeping in the sand off the wreck and it was a totally different experience. As I began my ascent I stopped at 90 feet and watched Andrew light up the wreck as he scootered along 40 feet below me. Truly awesome!

From the MEXICANO we pulled anchor and started heading back towards home where we stopped at the 1800 Line wreck which is thought to be the steamer CONSOLS. We dove Sunday morning at had 10-15 feet of visibility at 80 fsw. A nice little dive to end an incredible weekend on the Atlantic!